Expert to talk about the red wolf in the Appalachians

The red wolf is one of the most endangered animals in the world and a native of North Carolina.

Wildlife expert Ron Sutherland will lecture about “Restoring the Endangered Red Wolf to the Wilds of the Southern Appalachians” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 1, at the Highlands Nature Center. The talk is part of this summer’s weekly Zahner Conservation Lecture Series.

Sutherland will talk about a recovery program that has released red wolves into northeastern North Carolina and into the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Sutherland is a conservation scientist for Wildlands Network where he focuses on creating habitat for the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Plain and wildlife corridors connecting the coastal plain to the Southern Appalachians. He completed his Ph.D. in environmental science and policy at Duke University, where he studied wildlife species, urbanization and car traffic in the Sandhills region of North Carolina.

The Naturalist's Corner

My family and I made a quick run up to Waterrock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway around dusk last Sunday (July 19) to get a peek at some celestial luminaries. Venus and Jupiter joined the waxing crescent moon on the western horizon. They danced and played hide and seek amidst layered clouds whose purple backs touched the night while their bellies bathed in the last yellow and orange rays of the sun falling over the western horizon. It was a beautiful, tranquil setting.